Brothers and sisters, peace to you on this Lord’s Day.
In this passage, Paul shifts his focus: from the eternal plan of the Father, to the redemption accomplished by the Son, and now to the work of the Holy Spirit. Today I want to share three things with you.
First, how our world today thinks about “the spirit.”
Second, how the Spirit is connected to the gospel, to Christ’s redemption on the cross.
And third, how the Spirit seals us and guarantees our salvation.
1. Today’s Views of the Spirit
Recently I’ve noticed a fascinating, even contradictory trend. On the one hand, in China, materialist slogans are everywhere. Yet, at the same time, popular culture is overflowing with spiritual and supernatural themes.
China’s movie industry has now outpaced Hollywood at the box office. And what are the most popular films about? Not materialism, but the unseen—the mysterious, the spiritual world. We’ve rediscovered our own cultural traditions: Journey to the West, Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, stories of exorcisms, demon-hunting, secret arts, monsters, illusions, and more. It’s no different from Hollywood, where the Avengers and the Justice League dominate the screen. Aside from Iron Man, whose only “superpower” is his wealth, nearly every superhero’s power comes from some mysterious or otherworldly force.
Here’s the point: the moment you admit you cannot control everything, the moment you realize that science and reason cannot explain everything, something happens. Curiosity about the unseen world creeps in. Fear of spiritual forces seeps into your heart. Even superstition begins to shape your values. And even those who loudly claim to be materialists, when weighed down by grief or weakness, often take a very pragmatic attitude: “Better to believe there might be spirits than to believe there are none.”
We’ve all experienced something like this. You wrestle with a problem. You think and think until your mind is worn out, until reason runs into a dead end. And then, like a sudden flash of light, the answer comes. Your mind clears. Understanding dawns.
In ancient Chinese thought—whether in Zen, Buddhism, Daoism, or folk traditions—“spirit” was not tied to the one true God. It lacked holiness and righteousness. It lacked the clear moral commands that only God gives. So in Chinese tradition, “spirit” is often described with three words: First, it is associated with “empty” (空灵 – ethereal). Second, it is associated with “illusory” (虚 – 灵虚, illusory spirit). Third, it is associated with “phantom” (幻 – 灵幻, phantom spirit). Spirit was seen as empty, illusory and like a phantom—because it had no content, no moral order, no eternal purpose grounded in the will of the LORD, the God who works all things according to His plan of salvation.
If you do not know the living God, two things will follow. First, you will believe that spiritual power is real. Second, you will believe that this power shows up as ghosts and demons, as unpredictable fate, as gods locked in battles of good and evil, or as sorcery that tries to manipulate mysterious forces. This is one reason the LORD commanded Israel to drive out the Canaanites. Their greatest sin was this: they were consumed with witchcraft and communicating with spirits. In other words, they were a culture obsessed with spiritual power. If you walked into their “theaters,” you would find blockbuster stories about hunting demons and summoning spirits—always guaranteed hits at the box office. And God hated it.
Any people who do not know the living God will, in the end, become consumers of the devil. Their culture will be saturated with evil spirits—with ghosts, demons, and witchcraft.
Now don’t think of sorcery only as going into a temple and performing some formal ritual. Sorcery weaves itself into daily life. For example, in southern China people will say: This food looks like the heart—eat it and it will strengthen your heart. This looks like a foot—eat it and it will strengthen your foot. That is sorcery. (In the West you might see something similar in horoscopes or lucky charms.) It’s the belief that mysterious powers are everywhere, that some hidden “principle of similarity” governs your life. But at its root, it is unbelief: a refusal to worship the one true God and to trust His Holy Spirit. It is a culture filled with witchcraft and the power of evil spirits.
And in such a culture, the devil rules. He rules by fear. He rules through people’s dread of chance or their blind devotion to chance. He rules over everyone who cannot hold onto their future, because they do not know the God who holds the future. This is one way of thinking about the spiritual world.
But we are Christians. We believe in God. We believe the devil is real. We believe in the Holy Spirit. We affirm the reality of the spiritual world, the fallen angles, and the dark powers at work in this world, empowered by human sin.
So now let us turn to the second point: the relationship between the Holy Spirit and the gospel, between the Spirit and the salvation Christ accomplished.
2. The Holy Spirit and the Gospel
Do you remember how Paul addresses the Christians in Ephesus? Right at the beginning, he calls them saints. The word Christian appears only a few times in the New Testament, but saints appears again and again. And what does it mean? It means those who have been set apart—set apart from sin, from darkness, from a world under the shadow of death.
So what does it mean to be saved? From this perspective, to be saved means to be separated from the unsaved. To be saved means to be lifted out of ruin. To be saved means to be delivered from the ultimate consequence of sin: destruction and hell.
Christ’s redemption shows us that God is the one who works all things according to His will. Why are we saved? How do we become Christians? Paul gives us a clear structure in Ephesians 1:11–14: the work of the Father, the work of the Son, and the work of the Holy Spirit.
The Father, from eternity, planned, prepared, and ordained our salvation, all to the praise of His glorious grace. The Son entered our world and shed His blood on the cross, accomplishing redemption for us, washing away our sins, all to the praise of His glorious grace. And the Spirit is given, poured out, and applied to us. The very power that defeats the powers of evil now enters our lives, restoring God’s image in us, restoring holiness and righteousness, all to the praise of His glorious grace.
As Ezekiel prophesied: “I will give you a new heart, and I will put my Spirit within you” (Ezek. 36:26). The Father plans, the Son redeems, and the Spirit applies, so that the highest purpose of the gospel might be fulfilled: that God’s glorious grace be praised.
And this means something practical: in salvation, God does not share His glory with anyone. He does not allow you to claim even a fraction of the credit. He does the work; He gives you the result. Like a host who says to his guest, “Sit and rest; you need not lift a finger. We will share the meal and the joy, but not the labor.” So too God says: I will not share My work, but I will share My glory with you.
The seal of the Holy Spirit, like the cross of Christ, declares the same truth: God is the one who works all things according to His will. In salvation, not only is the work of redemption accomplished, but it is also applied personally to us. God will never share His glory with us in the work itself because that would lead to pride. God wants us to know, not to boast.
That is why Paul declares: “By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8–9).
The Triune God works in perfect unity. The Father plans, the Son accomplishes, and the Spirit applies. Yet they do not act apart. In creation, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit were all present. Yet the work of planning and ordaining is attributed especially to the Father. When the Son came to accomplish redemption, the Father and the Spirit were with Him. But the task of redemption itself, in the eternal counsel of God, was posed like this: “How shall Adam’s children, fallen sons and daughters of God, be saved? Who will take their place? Who will repay the debt of the law they can never repay?” And the Son said, “Here am I, send me.”
Likewise, when the Spirit applies salvation, He too is not working apart. The Spirit is the Spirit of the LORD, the Spirit of Christ. Father, Son, and Spirit labor together in salvation, pointing us to one great reality: the substance and the goal of the gospel— that the praise of His glorious grace might resound on earth, that He might be worshiped among His people.
Recently, I read something deeply troubling in The Global Times. In a commentary defending a proposed constitutional amendment, it used the term “Trinity” to describe President Xi Jinping, claiming that in recent years he has united in himself the roles of Chairman of the Central Military Commission, General Secretary of the Communist Party, and President of the state. Their reasoning was that such a “trinity” should be written into the Constitution.
But what does this really mean? It is meant to ensure that one man’s glory is exalted, and that this glory is never shared with another. And so I must say this: to amend a constitution to write the name of a man who is still alive— a man who will one day die— and to remove term limits for the head of state for his sake, is to set apart one man from among 1.3 billion people, even from his colleagues and comrades. Friends, I am not speaking here about Politics, but about idolatry. This is the worship of man. This is the kind of dangerous and terrible sin that once led God to judge and wipe out the idolatrous nations of Canaan. This is not being set apart as holy. This is being set apart for evil.
When we think of this, we recall the Tower of Babel. We recall the wrath of the LORD poured out on idol-worshiping nations. If someone is to be set apart, by what mark shall that setting apart be made clear? What sign, seal, or stamp will show that such a distinction is sacred, certain, and holy?
Brothers and sisters, hear this: Xi Jinping bears no seal of the Spirit, nor the anointing of the LORD’s prophets. But Paul declares that you have been sealed with the Holy Spirit. And that seal declares this: the kingdom belongs to you. The eternal inheritance is yours. “The heavens are the LORD’s heavens, but the earth he has given to the children of man” (Ps. 115:16). Amen! The world to come belongs to you, the people of God, sealed by the Spirit, stamped and marked as His own. Amen!
Brothers and sisters, this week the National People’s Congress will gather. Three thousand delegates will vote, and even if not a single one of them raises a dissenting hand, even if all three thousand agree to write their leader’s name into the constitution, and even if they all agree he may rule without limit until death, still, I urge you to believe this: no vote, no military might, no mass approval can ever lift a man into a spiritual position above all humanity and above the law. That place belongs to God alone.
What is the gospel? The gospel denies every form of self-coronation. Whether in Politics or in morality, whether in public life or private life, the gospel says: no one can justify himself, no one can crown himself king, neither by his own deeds nor by the applause of others. Amen! Jesus said, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone” (Mark 10:18). To justify yourself is to make yourself God. The essence of self-righteousness is self-deification.
And friends, I am not only speaking about them. I am speaking about us. Every person who does not trust in God is busy enthroning himself. You may not have the power to make society robe you in gold, but in your private life you rule as king. Isn’t that true? At the very least, you rewrite the constitution of your own household. Sin at its core is crowning yourself. A domineering boss, a husband who lords it over his wife—what are they doing but demanding that their name be written into the family or company’s constitution, so that their word is the final authority? It’s not only the Communist Party that does this—we all do this!
Until we meet Jesus Christ, until we surrender the sovereignty of our lives to Him, until the Holy Spirit seals us with His stamp, we all stamp ourselves. We all call ourselves king. But Paul says the only way a sinner is set apart as holy before God, the only way to be distinguished from the rest of the world, is by the filling and outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit pours into us the redemption Christ accomplished on the cross.
Now, the Spirit is different from Christ in this: Christ is the second person of the Trinity. He came into our midst as a man, willingly humbling Himself. When Christ was born in Bethlehem, He hid one of the most profound attributes of God: His omnipresence. In Bethlehem, He was not in China. When He walked in Jerusalem, He was not in Rome. Do you see how much He humbled Himself? He laid aside what makes God, God—the attribute of omnipresence.
But when the Holy Spirit comes, He is poured out among us. God is Spirit, and the Spirit possesses God’s very omnipresence. In every age, in this very moment, He is in you, and He is also in me. He is here with us, and at the same time in believers across the nations. Yes, because He is God. He fills, He leads, He pours Himself into every child of God.
And do you realize this too is God’s humbling Himself? For the Spirit to dwell in you is like Christ dwelling in this sinful world. To put it bluntly, the Spirit living in us is like a flower planted in manure. And when a flower is planted in manure, that manure is set apart from all the other manure piles. You could even say that, because the flower now grows there, the manure has become part of the flower’s life. It is not the flower itself, but the flower gladly claims it as its own soil.
The Holy Spirit—the Holy One, the Glorious One, the Spirit of God—enters your filthy heart. Sometimes your house is such a mess you don’t want visitors. If your house is messy, imagine how messy your heart must be! Isn’t it true? The Spirit entering our hearts is like entering a place that reeks. But the greatest filth is not our body—it is our heart. That is what it means to be “totally depraved”: not that you forgot to bathe, but that your heart is corrupt through and through. And yet, the Spirit chooses to dwell there.
That, brothers and sisters, is how we are saved. That is why we are Christians today. Because the Holy Spirit has entered us, we have been set apart from the world of darkness. We did nothing. We could do nothing. In our salvation, we have no credit at all.
So, what does it mean to believe in the Lord? It means admitting that we have no merit of our own, handing over the full sovereignty of our lives to Him, and confessing that everything in us comes from God. To stand before Him and say: “All that I am is Yours. I live because of You, and I live for You.” Amen!
That is why Paul writes, “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s” (Rom. 14:8). Amen! The gospel is the grace of God. The gospel is that His glorious grace might be praised—in the life of every sinner who repents and believes, in our words and deeds, in our daily lives, in our every movement and breath. Amen!
Dear brothers and sisters, let me be clear: I am not speaking about “them”—not about those who worship power, nor about those who worship themselves. I am speaking about you. Paul says, “You were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit” (Eph. 1:13). When he said this, was he unaware of the mighty and powerful people of his day? Of course not. But he forgot them. Caesar himself was outside his vision. What is Caesar compared to Christ? The rulers of this world, for all their power, do not know the name of the Lord. And so Paul turns to you, God’s children, and says: You bear the seal of the Spirit of the Lord of hosts. Amen!
3. The Seal and the Guarantee of the Spirit
Now, for a moment, forget the powers and rulers of this world. What I want you to see is your true honor—the honor Paul speaks of in this passage, the honor God Himself proclaims in the gospel. Brothers and sisters, you are far more honored than those who sit in the great assemblies of the powerful.
In Chinese history, there was always talk of the imperial jade seal, said to have been carved from the famous Heshi jade. The first emperor Qin Shihuang (秦始皇) used it. Whoever possessed this seal had the right to rule the empire. By the Tang dynasty, the seal had been lost, and later emperors simply carved new ones for themselves.
So what was the greatest act that could set someone apart in that culture? To receive the emperor’s seal. Yet Paul would say, “What is that?” Any man could carve a seal for himself and claim to be king, or even to be god, or to declare himself righteous. In China’s way of thinking, there was only one righteous man, all others were sinners. That is why the emperor even called himself the one alone (寡人), for he was supposedly the only righteous one.
But brothers and sisters, can you sense the shock of Paul’s words here? He tells us there is a seal infinitely more precious, more exalted, more holy than the emperor’s jade seal, and that seal has been stamped on you. Amen! That is what it means to be a Christian. Do you believe in Jesus? Do you confess that you are a sinner? Then you are a sinner who has received a seal beyond all price.
The seal declares that you belong to God. And that seal is the Holy Spirit, God’s Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord of hosts, the Spirit of Christ, the third person of the one true God. He is everywhere present, gentle as rain falling on the fields, and He has entered your heart, your filthy heart, your rebellious soul, your very being.
God Himself has said: “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you” (Ezek. 36:26–27). He replaces our granite-hard heads and stone-cold hearts with living hearts of flesh. There He sets His seal: you belong to Him.
But there is more. Paul tells us that when the Spirit dwells within, the seal is not only proof that we belong to God, it is proof that God belongs to us. For the Spirit is also “the guarantee of our inheritance” (Eph. 1:14).
What is a “guarantee”? It is like a deposit, collateral (质) , a pledge. In fact, the word (质) has the same root idea as what we call a “hostage (人质).” You’ve heard this word before. In ancient China, if one kingdom defeated another and they made peace, there had to be a pledge of trust. But who sent the hostage? Was it the victorious kingdom that gave away its prince? Of course not. It was the defeated side that sent its son as a hostage to guarantee the peace.
Yet in the gospel, we see something utterly upside down. Did God lose the battle? No! Yet God sent His Son as a hostage. And after His Son returned home, He then sent the Spirit as a hostage. And that is exactly what Paul says here! The Holy Spirit is given to you as the down payment, the pledge that you will one day inherit the full kingdom of heaven. My friends, is this not staggering? Is this not a form of divine humility, a lowering of Himself? He says, in effect, “I will put Myself in your hands as collateral.”
The Spirit’s seal says not only that we belong to Him, but that He belongs to us. God has pledged Himself to a world that betrayed Him, a world that did not know Him, a world full of darkness. He has pledged Himself to people like us—people who wake up in the morning and ask, “Do I still believe in this God? Will I follow His law today? Or will I chase after the pleasures of this world and enjoy the sweetness of sin instead?”
And yet—to such fickle, wavering, half-hearted people, God says, I give you Myself as pledge.
In the Pentateuch, when we read about Israel’s wilderness journey, a phrase appears repeatedly: time after time. Time after time we betrayed Him. Time after time we rebelled. Time after time we denied God.
Dear brothers and sisters, how long have you been a believer? In your life, in your actions, in your daily relationships, how many times have you denied God? How many times have you turned away from Him? If we look at ourselves, who among us can ever be sure that we will remain faithful to the very end? I believe today, but how can I guarantee that I will still believe next year? How can I guarantee that I won’t turn away from Him again and again? How can I guarantee that, in the very moment of my death, I will still belong to Him—and He to me?
Can I rely on myself? On my service in the church? On my tithing? On the fact that I read the Bible—perhaps even once every year? On the good deeds I’ve done for the poor, or on acts of justice and mercy I’ve pursued? Can these things guarantee my salvation? No, they cannot.
But God has given us a guarantee. A guarantee we could never give ourselves: the Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts, never to depart. You may leave Him, but He will not leave you. He has entered within, and you cannot shake Him off. He has come as a hostage—God Himself has come as a hostage.
And let me add this: among all things in heaven and on earth, what is the most precious? Who is greater—God or His creation? Of course, God Himself is greater than all He has made. Now think about this: when people make contracts, they often require collateral, right? Suppose someone owes you a million dollars. He says, “I’ll pay you back,” and you say, “I don’t trust you. Give me some security.” So he gives you $100,000—or maybe $150,000. That’s called a deposit, a down payment, a pledge to prove he will repay the full amount.
But have you ever heard of someone who owes ten thousand, and to reassure you, he gives a million upfront? Who would put down something worth far more than the debt just to prove he’ll repay a small amount later? No one does that. Yet God does. He says, “Your glory, your eternal inheritance, your place in the new heavens and new earth—it’s yours. But since you doubt, here is My pledge: I will give you My Spirit to dwell in you.”
Do you see what this means? God has given us something infinitely greater as the pledge for something infinitely smaller! Do you see His humility in this? His condescension? Do you see how the indwelling of the Spirit is just like Christ’s work on the cross? Both are acts of God’s mercy, freely given according to His will. Just as Christ placed Himself in the place of sinners, taking the position of a prisoner on the cross, so the Holy Spirit enters our hearts, placing Himself in the position of a debtor, in the position of the defeated, all for our sake.
4. The Filling and Work of the Holy Spirit
In the prophecies of Isaiah and throughout the Old Testament, there is a repeated expectation for the day when the Spirit would be poured out. In the Old Testament, the Spirit would come upon the prophets, but it was never an indwelling presence. He would come, and then depart. When the Spirit of the Lord came upon a prophet, he spoke. But then there would be stretches of silence. Twenty years could pass without a word from the Lord.
But today, brothers and sisters, every Christian possesses a grace that not even the greatest Old Testament prophet ever had—the Spirit of God now dwells within us. Ezekiel foretold this in a stunning way, describing the outpouring of the life-giving Spirit into our midst. Joel adds something even more remarkable: in the past, the Spirit was poured out only on certain chosen prophets. But Joel prophesied of a day when the Spirit would be poured out on all kinds of people—old men and young, male and female, servants, all flesh. And this prophecy was fulfilled at Pentecost.
Every church is a Pentecost church. We may not be a charismatic church in the modern sense, but we absolutely believe in the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Amen! For the very essence of the church is the outpouring of the Spirit. The essence of the church is the seal of the Spirit. It is the Spirit who applies to us all the grace Christ has accomplished. That is the church. We confess, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church,” because the church itself is the fruit of the Spirit’s outpouring and sealing.
Three thousand people voting together could never make one person God. But when God Himself became man, when the Spirit poured out the salvation of Christ, then on the day of Pentecost three thousand were baptized. Why are we Christians? Because God has carried out His own plan: “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit” (Eph. 1:13). The work of the Spirit is inseparably tied to the gospel.
What does the Spirit pour out? The word of truth. What is the result of the Spirit’s outpouring? The gospel of salvation. What does the Spirit’s filling accomplish in you? That in all things, you trust Christ! Amen!
Friends, we must not separate the Spirit’s work from Christ’s work, nor from the gospel of God, as if Christianity were about chasing spiritual experiences for their own sake. Yes, the Spirit can give us power, deep experiences, and profound stirrings in our hearts—this is true. But the Spirit’s chief work, as the Westminster Confession calls it, is speaking through the Scriptures.
What is His primary work? The word of truth you have heard. Without the Spirit’s work, you may hear but not understand, you may see but remain blind. The Spirit enables us to grasp the word of truth, to enter into the saving gospel, to trust in the cross of Christ.
So what is the filling of the Spirit? The way of the cross is the filling of the Spirit. To proclaim the word of the Lord with boldness is the filling of the Spirit. To read the Word and pray every day is the filling of the Spirit. Amen!
What is the filling of the Spirit? It is the willingness to suffer in your service and in your daily life, to take up your cross. It is when a husband is willing to suffer for his wife, when coworkers are willing to suffer for one another, when pastors are willing to suffer for their flock, when church members are willing to suffer for their brothers and sisters, even when one church is willing to suffer for the sake of other churches in Christ’s body. This is the filling of the Holy Spirit. Amen!
This past week, all the teachers from our training center attended the Wenzhou Church School Alliance teachers’ conference. I’ve been to Wenzhou many times, but it was my first time visiting the prayer mountain in Yueqing. One sister told me that when she was a teenager, she would climb that mountain with her parents, back when there wasn’t even a road. We drove up in a car. But thirty years ago, when the prayer mountain was first built, climbing to the top took more than two hours on foot. And that had one benefit: the police usually wouldn’t come! Back then, brothers and sisters would gather to pray in the grass, and little by little, they built one small house after another until there stood a prayer mountain.
Dear brothers and sisters, where does the filling of the Holy Spirit begin? What I saw there was the secret of revival in the Wenzhou church: for thirty years, they have persevered in prayer. May the Lord help us do the same.
Yesterday morning, I came here and saw about fifty people attending morning prayer. My heart rejoiced! The New Year holiday has just ended, and already it looks like revival is on the way. And I saw that even brothers and sisters from other places had come—eight or nine were here. Revival is the fruit of being filled with the Holy Spirit.
Jesus Himself said: “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:11–13).
So, brothers and sisters, ask Him! Perhaps you have heard the gospel for some time, but when you open the Bible, you find you don’t understand. Or perhaps you already believe, but you realize you don’t enjoy reading Scripture—you cannot keep at it. Or maybe you read God’s Word, but find no real power in it—power to strengthen you, to make you bold, to stir you to proclaim Christ without fear. If that is you, then fall on your knees before God and plead for the work of the Holy Spirit. Amen!
Ask the Spirit to anoint you, to make the cross of Christ shine through your life, to reveal the Son of God in your heart. Amen! Beloved brothers and sisters, don’t chase after signs and wonders. Pray instead for the greatest wonder of all—that Christ would be revealed within you. Amen! Pray for the greater miracle—that your heart would repent, that your spirit would be softened, that you would be drawn out of false and unclean spirits and brought into the Spirit’s world, a world filled with the Holy Spirit.
In that place, you will not fear the power of kings. In that place, you will not crave the riches of Mammon. In that place, you will burn with the hope of eternal life. Amen!
The New Testament tells us that when our Lord was buried, both the Roman authorities and the Jewish leaders were deeply concerned. Jesus had said He would rise again, so they rolled a massive stone to seal the tomb. And to make sure, they placed the imperial seal of Caesar upon it. The emperor’s own stamp was pressed on the tomb of Jesus. Now it was “secure.” Who would dare to break the emperor’s seal?
But brothers and sisters, did Caesar’s seal stop Jesus from rising from the dead? Amen! No power on earth could keep Him in that grave. And so, in China today—whether in 2018, or 1949, or 1807—no imperial seal can stop your resurrection. Amen! No government decree can stop revival. Amen!
Yes, in your life there may be two seals. The first is stamped by the authorities: “illegal, subversive, colluding with foreign forces, no unregistered preaching, no unapproved offerings, no gathering without permit, no minors under eighteen allowed.” That is one seal.
But brothers and sisters, you also bear another seal—the seal of the Holy Spirit. Amen! By the Spirit’s seal and the Spirit’s power, Christ Himself rose from the tomb that bore the emperor’s seal. Hallelujah!
Acts 2:33 says, in Peter’s Pentecost sermon: “Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.” Brothers and sisters, do you see? The Spirit was not first given directly to us. The Spirit was given to Christ. Why? Because we are sinful and unclean. How could the Spirit dwell in us? But Christ is the Mediator. He died, He rose again, and He received the Spirit from the Father, and then He poured Him out on us. That is why the Spirit is also called the Spirit of Christ. Amen!
This is our faith: no matter what orders governments issue, no matter what stamp they press on the church, as long as they oppose God’s command, as long as they seek to restrain the gospel and limit the worship of God’s people, those seals are nothing more than scribbles and scrawls. Hallelujah!
Throughout history, every revival, every awakening of souls, has been the work of the Holy Spirit poured out on the church and on God’s people. So we pray: Lord, revive our prayer life. Lord, revive our daily reading of Scripture. Lord, revive our evangelism. Lord, revive our service.
When you serve until you feel you can’t go on, pray for the Spirit—He will fill you. When you love until it hurts, pray for the Spirit—He will comfort and heal you. But if your serving is always comfortable, if your love is always easy, then you may not yet know the Spirit’s anointing. Because with your own strength, your own willpower, you can manage some service. You can make a phone call once a week. You can do “just enough.”
But only the filling of the Spirit can carry you beyond your own limits. Only then will your life be broken, and in the very place where you are broken, the Spirit will enter. If everything is perfect, unbroken, without cracks, how could the Spirit come in?
The Spirit must break you open. Sometimes He strikes your mind, sometimes your hands, sometimes your marriage, sometimes your work, sometimes even your ministry. Only when we are broken can the Spirit enter. Amen!
Let us bow our heads and pray together:
Lord, we thank You! You said that even though we are flawed, we still know how to give good gifts to our children—how much more will our Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? Lord, we also pray for the outpouring and filling of Your Spirit—the Spirit You promised to give to our Lord Christ, the Spirit that our Lord received from the Father when He rose from the dead after the cross. We ask You to pour it out on us.
Lord, stir our hearts, let the fire of Your Spirit continue to burn, and set ablaze Your church here in China. Lord, You once set our previous generation of saints on fire with Your Spirit; we ask You, today, to burn within us as well. Lord, You have made those churches that were tested by fire fearless in the face of all suffering, unafraid of government persecution, unconcerned about ridicule and scorn from the world, but full of love rooted in You—love that covers a multitude of sins. When others curse or persecute us, we will bless them, not curse them.
Lord, we also ask for mercy on this nation. Do not let it fall into that terrible sin that would bring Your righteous judgment. Lord, we pray before You that, if it is Your will and possible, You would delay Your judgment. Revive Your church in China, and before any judgment comes, bring about a revival of the gospel and growth of Your church. So that in Your words, You might say of this city: “There are many of My own people here, many who trust in My Son Jesus Christ,” and You would spare this city, showing forgiveness and mercy on this land.
Lord, use Your church to make us people of this age who can see the sins of the times, who mourn and repent before You, and who pray: “Lord, we owe a debt of the gospel. We owe a debt to every city and village, even to the Communist Party, even to those who go to meetings, even to those who live in Zhongnanhai. We long to share the gospel we believe in with them, and we long that one day we may worship You together with Your people among them.”
We thank and praise You, Lord, for hearing our prayers. We ask all this in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen!
